I'm not scheduled in any tactical operations roles this week, but have
been calling into planning meetings for both MSL (Curiosity) and MER
(Opportunity). The rovers and other Mars spacecraft are preparing for
the upcoming "superior conjunction" of Mars, when the planet will pass
behind the Sun as seen from Earth. For a couple weeks around
conjunction, it is difficult (or impossible) to communicate with the
spacecraft because radio waves are disrupted by plasma in the Sun's
atmosphere. So command sequences have been prepared to get the
spacecraft through this period safely, without much activity. This
week is our last chance to plan additional observations before the
conjunction plan kicks in, so we are finishing up the highest-priority
science activities on both rovers. On MSL, these include APXS,
Mastcam and ChemCam measurements of the first drill sample after it
was dumped out of CHIMRA. For MER, we have selected in interested
rock target to place the APXS, in order to acquire lots of good data
during conjunction.